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The “Operational Code” Approach to the Study of Political Leaders: Dean Acheson's Philosophical and Instrumental Beliefs*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 November 2009

David S. McLellan
David S. McLellan
Affiliation:
University of California, Riverside
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Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 4 , Issue 1 , March 1971 , pp. 52 - 75
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Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1971

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References

1 “A Decision-Making Approach,” in Young, Roland, Approaches to the Study of Politics (Evanston, Ill., 1958), 35Google Scholar (emphasis in original).

2 “The ‘Operational Code’: A Neglected Approach to the Study of Political Leaders and Decision-Making,” International Studies Quarterly, XIII (1969), 190–222.

3 In attempting to delineate Acheson's “operational code” I have had recourse both to his public speeches and to a number of “private” communications while in office. I have not always been able to employ the latter as some of them are still restricted, but I think it will become clear that there is sufficient consistency between what he says in public and what actually occurs to confirm that his public and private beliefs were not markedly at odds. Secondly, wherever possible I have cited examples from the diplomatic record, public and restricted, to buttress my judgment of Acheson's belief system. Finally, my judgments rest on familiarity with Acheson's biography based on scores of interviews with friends, law partners, and collaborators both in America and in Europe. I also spent six months in Mr Acheson's law offices studying his papers and discussing with him aspects of his career and his actions as Secretary of State.

It seems appropriate to mention that Mr Acheson's mother and father were Canadians, and that his mother's family, the Gooderhams, have a long and distinguished connection with the city of Toronto. The family took up residence in Middletown, Connecticut, in 1892 when his father became the rector of the Church of the Holy Trinity. Acheson was born in Middletown, April 11, 1893.

4 “Random Harvest,” speech at Associated Harvard Clubs, Boston, Mass., June 4, 1946. Unless otherwise identified the quotations are from Acheson's addresses or statements on the dates given. They are found in mimeograph form in Dean Acheson's files. The speeches are also available in the State Department series for that year and many of them are reprinted in the Department of State Bulletin.

5 Acheson, Dean, A Democrat Looks at His Party (New York, 1955).Google Scholar Acheson first entered public life as under secretary of the Treasury to FDR. A disagreement over Roosevelt's gold policy led to Acheson's resignation. But unlike many early New Dealers who became disenchanted, Acheson grew to respect Roosevelt's accomplishments.

6 , Acheson, Morning and Noon (Boston, 1965), 51.Google Scholar

7 Ibid., 101–2.

8 Sept. 20, 1949. “But the fact remains that, with all its difficulties there is nothing better than democracies; in fact there is nothing that we can trust half as much.” Acheson Papers, letter to Louis Halle, March 17, 1955.

9 Evidence of the animus with which Acheson viewed the press is scattered throughout his memoirs, Present at the Creation (New York, 1969).

10 Annan, Noel, “End of the Line,” New York Review of Books, July 10, 1967, p. 30.Google Scholar

11 Subsequently Acheson was instrumental in devising the Acheson-Lilienthal Plan which had for its implicit promise that if the United States would present a reasonable plan for the control of atomic energy it might possibly win Moscow over to its support. Similarly, Acheson did not like Churchill's Iron Curtain Speech of March 5, 1946, at Fulton, Missouri. Then came the Iranian, Turkish, Yugoslavian, and Greek crises.

12 On Feb. 10, 1947, Acheson for the first time declared publicly that he was “quite aware that Russian foreign policy is an aggressive and expanding one.” Testimony before the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy, New York Times, Feb. 23, 1947.Google Scholar

13 June 4, 1947.

14 Ibid.

15 Jones, Joseph M., The Fifteen Weeks (New York, 1955), 141.Google Scholar

16 This shift in Acheson's perception of the Soviet Union was accompanied by a shift in the terms employed by him in describing the opponent. A statistical analysis of sixty-five references by Acheson to characterize Soviet motives and behaviour reveals the following pattern. In the period between Aug. 1945 and Jan. 1947, there is predominance of words like “delay,” “oppose,” “block,” “hinder,” and “obstruct” in describing Soviet motives and behaviour. A shift occurs in his thinking between Jan. 1947 and his return to office so that beginning with 1949 there is a predominance of such words as “pressure,” “force,” “control,” “exploit,” “subvert,” and “destroy.” The prevalence of such terms reaches a crescendo in the wake of the Korean War followed by a decline in their usage in early 1951 and a leveling off at a point somewhere below the 1949 level. We may conveniently dichotomize Acheson's characterization of the opponent in the following way. In the first period (up to Jan. 1947) Acheson saw the Soviet Union as essentially obstructive; after that as essentially menacing and aggressive. But in neither period was Acheson's view of the opponent so black as to negate the possibility of coexistence and the avoidance of war. These observations are based upon a coding of statements in Acheson's speeches by one of my students, Mr Stephen Ropp.

17 The situations of strength strategy was spelled out in a series of speeches in the spring of 1950: Department of State Bulletin, XXII (Feb. 20, 1950), 272–4; (March 13, 1950), 403; (March 20, 1950) 427–30; (March 27, 1950), 473–8.

18 Press conference of Feb. 8, 1950. Department of State Bulletin, XXII (Feb. 20, 1950), 272–4.

19 March 29, 1950.

20 June 13, 1950.

21 Sept. 8, 1950.

22 July 23, 1951.

23 A Life editorial of Nov. 20, 1950 (p. 38), sums up why most Americans were against Acheson's style. The principal charge in the editorial was that Acheson for all his anti-communist utterances has never gone beyond the line that we must coexist – he accepts the premise that communism is here to stay and that while we must deter and contain, make Moscow respect our interests and those of our allies, he is still willing to live with it. “The most meaningful of Mr. Acheson's attitudes is of course his attitude toward the life and death problem of his time. How to rid the world of the threat and evil of Communism.” “He has never acknowledged that there is any inherent and fundamental conflict between communism and freedom. Indeed in his speech to the General Assembly (Sept. 20) he denied in measured words that there is such a conflict…” In Asia his policy was unacceptable to Life because it denied that “The Communists of Asia, and especially of China, are not inherently our enemies,” and because “he discourages or minimizes any action in Asia which is likely to provoke them.” “His statements urging the Chinese to refrain from intervention in Korea were read in Asia as exhibitions of naked fear and encouragement to the Chinese Communists to come out shooting.”

24 Acheson's concern for the susceptibilities of Asian opinion in dissuading him from supporting Chiang Kai-shek in 1949–50 and of world opinion in limiting the war in Korea stand in marked contrast to his subsequent remarks as an elder statesman in these regards.

25 “Success Has Its Problems Too,” address to the Michigan Bar Association, Sept. 30, 1948. An important address delivered when Acheson had returned to private law practice and could speak his mind. Philosophic in nature.

26 June 4, 1947.

27 Ibid.

28 April 14, 1949.

29 “Random Harvest.”

30 “The non-Communist countries together have two-thirds of the world's population, three-fourths of the world's economic productive power… with these forces on our side, provided we use them well and wisely, the chances of victory and peace are good.” Feb. 16, 1970.

31 April 11, 1950.

32 June 21, 1950.

33 Nov. 15, 1950.

34 Acheson was still, at the end of his tenure, balanced between optimism and pessimism. Recent events, Acheson remarked in the autumn of 1952, “show that the Communist world is being forced to adjust its tactics to the new situation created by the growing strength of the free world.” But lest anyone become too optimistic: “Many of us, obeying a natural human instinct, have the feeling that, after all, we occupy a favored position with Destiny, and that there can be no other outcome than a happy one to our problems. This has not, however, been the judgment of history on nations that have failed to meet the problems of their times.” Oct. 1, 1952.

35 “Ideals and Doubts,” The Holmes Reader, ed. Marke, Julius J. (New York, 1955), 42.Google Scholar

36 “Random Harvest.”

37 “Politics as a Vocation,” from Weber, Essays in Sociology, ed. Gerth, H. H. and Mills, C. W. (London, 1947).Google Scholar

38 Address to the Annual AI Smith Dinner, New York, Oct. 20, 1949. Similar beliefs are expressed in “Crisis in Asia – An Examination of U.S. Policy,” Department of State Bulletin, XXII (Jan. 23, 1950), 114.

39 From Bismarck to Adenauer (Baltimore, 1958), 15.

40 Speech of Sept. 30, 1948.

41 It is now suggested that Stalin's fierce almost hysterical behaviour was designed to strike awe and terror into Western minds as much as to conceal Russia's terrible weaknesses and to promote expansion. Ulam, Adam B., Expansion and Coexistence (New York, 1960), 498–500.Google Scholar

42 Speech of Sept. 8, 1950 (underlined in Acheson's copy of the speech).

43 Sept. 8, 1950.

44 “An American Attitude toward Foreign Affairs,” speech to the annual dinner of Davenport College, Yale University, Nov. 28, 1939.

45 Speech of Sept. 20, 1949. “We can help greatly those who are doing their utmost to succeed by their own efforts. We cannot direct or control; we cannot make a world, as God did, out of chaos. There are some… who think we should… and in less than six days.” Ibid.

46 The Mind and Faith of Justice Holmes, ed. Lerner, Max (New York, 1943), 42.Google Scholar

47 Speech of April 11, 1950.

48 The importance unfortunately which Indochina assumed for the French government led Acheson to a policy of economic and military support for the French colonial war there which violated his strategic reasoning. Even before the Korean War and Chinese intervention had occurred Acheson, on May 8, 1950, adopted a policy of according economic and military aid to the Associated States of Indochina (in effect puppets of the French) in the war against Ho Chi Minh's movement. Acheson considered it a necessary price to pay for French support for NATO.

49 It was Acheson, over the protests of the military including General MacArthur and Defense Secretary Louis Johnson, who initiated the Japanese peace treaty process in order to end the occupation and maintain America's favourable relationship with Japan.

50 “Crisis in Asia – An Examination of U.S. Policy,” 116–8.

51 Acheson detested moralizing about the British or French empires. He had no illusions about what the attitudes of their successors would be towards the West including the United States. He expected neither gratitude nor support from the newly enfranchized states; consequently he denied himself the luxury of moral outrage when Nehru, Krishna Menon, and other Afro-Asian leaders voted against the United States. He was also circumspect about imposing a Western interest upon Third World countries. When Egypt made it known that it would not join in any Western-sponsored Middle Eastern defence pact, Acheson dropped the subject.

52 Speech of Feb. 16, 1950.

53 Speech of Nov. 29, 1950.

54 Negotiation from Strength (New York, 1963), 23.

55 , Acheson, Power and Diplomacy (Boston, 1958), 47.Google Scholar

56 We really will not know until we have access to Soviet as well as American archives whether the Nov. 1950 and March 1952 Soviet offers on Germany constituted genuine negotiating bids or simply delaying bids. Certainly Acheson made no secret of his determination to view them as the latter and did everything within his power to neutralize their interference with the ratification of EDC and the rearmament of West Germany. With regard to the appropriateness of Acheson's response, Adam Ulam observes that “The sequence of events between September 1950 and June 1951 brings out once again the characteristic features of Soviet diplomacy of Stalin's era. A concrete danger, German rearmament, brings an instant reaction – willingness to negotiate… But as the danger recedes Soviet tactics become dilatory, propaganda rather than a settlement becomes the Soviet objective.” Expansion and Coexistence, 512.

57 Documents on International Affairs, 1949–50, ed. Carlyle, Margaret (London, 1952), 635.Google Scholar

58 Speech of Feb. 8, 1950.

59 Speech of April 11, 1950.